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HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL   REVIEW 

Volume  X  JULY,  1917  Number  3 


CLASSIC  AND  ROMANTIC  TRENDS  IN  PLATO ' 

J.  LOEWENBERG 

University  of  California 

The  problem  of  the  One  and  the  Many  is  a  problem 
essentially,  Platonic.  Characteristically  Platonic  is  the 
sayin'g  of  Socrates  in  tjie  Phaedrus:  "If  I  find  any  man 
who^is  able  to. see  a  'One  and  Many'  in  nature,  him  I 
fallow,  and  'walk  iniiis  footsteps  as  if  he  were  a  god.'"  ^ 
The  problem  of  'th#  One  and  the  Many  may  indeed  be 
said  to  be  the  point  around  which  Plato's  deepest  con- 
cerns center.  It  occurs  in  most  of  his  dialogues.  It  ap- 
^pears  in  different  formulations,  and  it  receives  a  variety 
of  emphasis.  It  is  certainly  at  the  root  of  his  morals. 
"Not  life,  but  a  good  life,  is  to  be  chiefly  valued,"  ^  is 
Plato's  fundamental  teaching.  And  the  good  life  is  a 
life  of  law,  order,  justice.  The  diverse  elements  of  the 
soul  must  be  set  in  order;  they  must  submit  to  one  organ- 
izing principle;  they  must  become  a  well-ordered  unity. 
"Can  there  be  any  greater  evil,"  asks  Socrates,  "than 
discord  and  distraction  and  plurality  where  unity  ought 
to  reign?  or  any  greater  good  than  the  bond  of  unity.''"  * 
The  ethical  task  of  the  many  is  "to  grow  up  in  a  noble 
order";  ^  they  must  constitute  "one  entirely  temperate 

^An  address  before  the  Philosophical  Union  of    the  University  of  California, 
February  23,  1917. 

»  Phaedrus,  266  (Jowett's  translation).  »  Crito,  48.  *  Republic,  462. 

6  Ibid.  421. 


216  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

anci  perfectly  adjusted  nature";  ^  they  must,  like  a  work 
of  art,  become  fashioned  into  "a  regular  and  systematic 
whole."  ^  The  many  are  to  become  one,  be  the  many 
the  multiple  elements  of  the  individual  soul  or  the  plural 
citizens  of  the  State.  For  Plato  advocates  no  "double 
standard"  —  one  for  the  individual  and  another  for  the 
group.  "The  just  man,"  insists  Socrates,  "will  be  like 
the  just  State";  ^  "the  same  principles  which  exist  in 
the  State  exist  also  in  the  individual";  ^  and  "the  States 
are  as  the  men  are."  ^°  This  problem  of  the  One  and  the 
Many  is  no  mere  ethical  problem  for  Plato.  His  whole 
metaphysical  quest  is  a  quest  for  absolute  essences 
behind  the  multiplicity  of  appearances.  "Philosophers 
only  are  able,"  Socrates  informs  Glaucon,  "to  grasp  the 
eternal  and  unchangeable,  and  those  who  wander  in  the 
region  of  the  many  and  variable  are  not  philosophers."  " 
It  is  the  task  of  philosophy  to  seek  behind  "the  ipany 
and  variable"  for  the  absolute  and  Aernal  and  immutable 
reality  "not  varying  from  generation  and  corruption." 
The  doctrine  of  ideas,  subject  indeed  to  many  and 
variable  interpretations,  must  be  regarded  as  Plato's 
metaphysical  account  of  the  nature  of  reality.  "This 
universe,"  according  to  his  belief,  "is  .  .  .  Cosmos  or 
order,  not  disorder  or  misrule."  ^^  That  ultimate  reality, 
despite  appearances,  possesses  eternal  harmony,  absolute 
permanence,  essential  unity — this  is  the  Platonic  con- 
viction formulated  in  the  doctrine  of  ideas. 

The  search  for  unity  then  may  in  general  be  affirmed 
to  be  Plato's  supreme  speculative  endeavor.  What  kind 
of  unity  is  Plato  seeking?  Here  we  come  upon  a  question 
which  admits  of  no  simple  answer.  I  find  in  Plato  two 
conflicting  conceptions  of  unity.  Whether  they  are 
with  or  without  consistency  maintained  by  him  I 
am  not  prepared  to  discuss.    To  reconcile  them,  or  to  re- 

•  Republic,  443.  ">  Gorgias,  504.  «  Republic,  435.  *  Ibid.  441. 

10  Ibid.  544.  "  Ibid.  484.  ^  Gorgias,  508. 


CLASSIC  AND  ROMANTIC  TRENDS  IN  PLATO    217 

duce  one  to  the  other,  is  a  task  for  the  speciahst  who  is 
committed  to  defend  the  unity  of  Plato's  thought.  I 
am  no  Plato  scholar,  and  I  have  no  ready  hypothesis 
which  will  explain  the  differing  modes  of  his  doctrine. 
That  the  dialogues  actually  contain  two  inconsistent 
notions  of  unity,  however  the  professional  Platonist 
may  interpret  them,  can  be  demonstrated  by  quotations 
from  the  text.  Their  inconsistency  may  indeed  be  super- 
ficial or  even  specious;  nevertheless  they  seem  to  me  to 
represent  two  fundamentally  different  attitudes  toward 
life  and  reality.  And  because  I  think  it  important  to  note 
the  distinction  between  them,  I  venture,  with  all  due  apol- 
ogies to  Plato  and  the  Platonists,  to  call  attention  to  these 
seemingly  conflicting  views. 

One  conception  of  unity  found  in  Plato  is  a  unity  which 
is  antagonistic  to  the  many.  Variety,  difference,  change, 
complexity  are  excluded  from  it.  The  immortality  of  the 
soul,  for  instance,  is  argued  by  Plato  from  such  a  notion 
of  unity.  "We  cannot  believe,"  asserts  Socrates  in  the 
tenth  Book  of  the  Republic  " — reason  will  not  allow  us — 
...  the  soul,  in  her  truest  nature,  to  be  full  of  variety  and 
difference  and  dissimilarity.  .  .  .  The  soul  .  .  .  being  .  .  . 
immortal,  must  be  the  fairest  of  compositions  and  cannot 
be  compounded  of  many  elements."  ^^  In  the  notion  of 
uncompounded  unity  lies  Plato's  chief  guarantee  for  the 
eternal  existence  of  the  soul.  In  the  Phaedo  Socrates 
formulates  the  argument  thus:  "The  compound  or  com- 
posite may  be  supposed  to  be  naturally  capable,  as  of 
being  compounded,  so  also  of  being  dissolved;  but  that 
which  is  uncompounded,  and  that  only,  must  be,  if  any- 
thing is,  indissoluble.  .  .  .  And  the  uncompounded  may 
be  assumed  to  be  the  same  and  unchanging,  whereas  the 
compound  is  always  changing  and  never  the  same."  ^* 
And  it  is  such  argument  which  leads  to  the  conclusion 
that  "the  soul  is  in  the  very  likeness  of  the  divine,  and 

15  Republic,  611.  "  Phaedo,  78. 


218  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

immortal  and  intellectual  and  uniform  and  indissoluble 
and  unchangeable."  ^^  Although  this  notion  of  the  soul 
affords  perhaps  the  most  striking  example  of  Plato's 
view  of  an  "  uncompounded  unity,"  this  same  view  is  also 
at  the  basis  of  his  doctrine  of  ideas.  "Tell  me,"  Socrates 
asks  of  Meno,  "tell  me  what  virtue  is  in  the  universal; 
and  do  not  make  a  singular  into  a  plural,  as  the  facetious 
say  of  those  who  break  a  thing,  but  deliver  virtue  to  me 
whole  and  sound,  and  not  broken  into  a  number  of 
pieces."  ^^  In  the  Phaedrus,  Phaedo,  Republic,  and  else- 
where the  ideas  are  looked  upon  as  being  self-contained 
and  transcending  internal  multiplicity  and  variety  and 
change.  What  relation  the  ideas  have  to  one  another  is 
a  different  question.  But  the  ideas  qua  ideas — the  ideas 
of  beauty,  of  justice,  of  goodness — are  absolute  and  per- 
manent, possessing  a  reality  and  dignity  other  than  that  of 
the  flux  of  particulars.  Socrates  satirizes  "the  gentleman 
who  is  of  opinion  that  there  is  no  absolute  or  unchange- 
able idea  of  beauty  —  in  whose  opinion  the  beautiful 
is  the  manifold  —  he  .  .  .  your  lover  of  beautiful  sights, 
who  cannot  bear  to  be  told  that  the  beautiful  is  one,  and 
the  just  is  one,  or  that  anything  is  one."  ^^  The  true  lover 
of  knowledge,  on  the  contrary,  "will  not  rest  in  the  multi- 
plicity of  individuals  which  is  an  appearance  only."  ^^ 
But  "those  who  see  the  many  beautiful  and  .  .  .  [not]  ab- 
solute beauty  .  .  .;  who  see  the  many  just  and  not  abso- 
lute justice,  and  the  like  —  such  persons  may  be  said  to 
have  opinion  but  not  knowledge."  ^^  I  fully  realize  the 
danger  which  accrues  from  citing  isolated  passages  of 
Plato's  dialogues,  particularly  those  which  concern  the 
doctrine  of  ideas.  The  difiicult  questions  which  this  doc- 
trine raises  lie  indeed  beyond  the  scope  of  an  untechnical 
essay;  the  citations  are  justified,  however,  as  merely 
illustrating  one  view  of  Platonic  unity,  a  unity  which  is 

"  Phaedo,  80.  ^^  Meno,  77.  "  Republic,  479  (italics  mine). 

18  Ibid.  490.  18  Ibid.  479. 


CLASSIC  AND   ROMANTIC  TRENDS  IN  PLATO    219 

uncompoimded  and  undifferentiated  and  thus  opposed 
to  multiplicity. 

Contrasted  with  this  is  the  other  Platonic  view  of 
unity — unity  compounded  of  the  many.  It  is  a  unity  which 
depends  for  its  very  existence  and  meaning  upon  multi- 
plicity. The  many  bound  together  into  a  whole — organ- 
ized, ordered,  and  harmonized — present  a  different  sort 
of  unity."  It  is  a  union  of  parts,  not  only  admitting  but 
demanding  variety,  difference,  change,  and  complexity.* 
The  organization  of  life  into  such  a  well-ordered  commun- 
ion of  parts  is  Plato's  chief  ethical  task.  As  "the  artist 
disposes  all  things  in  order,  and  compels  the  one  part  to 
harmonize  and  accord  with  the  other  part,  until  he  has 
constructed  a  regular  and  systematic  whole,"  ^°  so  the 
just  man  will  "look  at  the  city  which  is  within  him,  and 
take  heed  that  no  disorder  occur  in  it."  ^^  Strangely 
at  variance  with  Plato's  account  of  the  metaphysical 
soul  as  " uncompounded "  and  "uniform"  is  his  view 
of  the  soul's  multiplicity  and  variety  essential  for  the 
moral  life.  The  image  of  the  soul  as  a  triple  animal  whose 
different  natures  are  to  grow  into  one  is  indeed  allegor- 
icaP^;  equally  allegorical  is  the  description  of  the  soul 
under  the  figure  of  two  winged  horses  and  a  charioteer  ^^ ; 
but  the  reference  to  "the  city  which  is  within"  man  is 
not  metaphorical.  For  the  entire  Republic  is  an  exposition 
of  the  exact  parallelism  between  the  individual  and  the 
State.  A  miniature  State  is  Plato's  individual;  a  magni- 
fied individual  his  State.  "In  each  of  us,"  says  Socrates, 
"there  are  the  same  principles  and  habits  which  there 
are  in  the  State"  ^^;  "the  just  man  .  .  .  will  be  like  the 
just  State."  2^  As  the  State  is  composed  of  three  classes — 
justice  consisting  in  their  harmonious  co-operation — so 
the  individual  soul  possesses,  corresponding  to  these 
classes,  three  principles — desire,  passion,  and  reason,  the 

20  Gorgias,  504.  21  RepubliSp  492.  ^  Ibid.  588  ff. 

»  Phaedrus,  246  ff.  ^  Republic,  435.  =^  Ibid. 


220  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

harmonious  condition  of  which  defines  the  just  man.^^  In 
Socrates'  own  words:  "For  the  just  man  does  not  permit 
the  several  elements  within  him  to  interfere  with  one 
another,  or  any  of  them  to  do  the  work  of  others;  he 
sets  in  order  his  own  inner  life,  and  is  his  own  master 
and  his  own  law,  and  at  peace  with  himself;  and  when 
he  has  bound  together  the  three  principles  within  him  .  .  . 
[he]  is  no  longer  many,  but  has  become  one  entirely  tem- 
perate and  perfectly  adjusted  nature."  "  The  just  soul 
is  thus  a  united  soul — an  organic  whole  of  differentiated, 
non-interchangeable,  and  interdependent  parts.  The 
same  organic  unity  —  on  a  larger  scale — characterizes  the 
just  State.  "Each  individual,"  insists  Socrates,  "should 
be  put  to  the  use  for  which  nature  intended  him,  one  to 
one  work,  and  then  every  man  would  do  his  own  business, 
and  he  one  and  not  many;  and  so  the  whole  city  would  he 
one  and  not  many''  ^^  In  Plato's  concept  of  the  well- 
ordered  State  made  up  of  various  and  distinct  classes  but 
"bound  each  to  each  in  mutual  piety,"  we  have  the  har- 
monization of  unity  and  plurality.  The  singleness  of 
the  State  does  not  destroy,  but  on  the  contrary  pre- 
serves, its  multiplicity.  The  two  concepts  are  here 
correlative.  The  many  by  retaining  as  individuals  their 
distinct  characters  can  become  one  and  whole.  "Citi- 
zens," exclaims  Socrates  in  the  parable  of  the  metals, 
"...  you  are  brothers,  yet  God  has  framed  you  differ- 
ently." 2^  That  the  individuals  can  achieve  genuine 
individuality  only  by  thus  being  distinct  members  of  a 
whole  is,  of  course,  a  much  later  thought,  though  implied 
in  Plato's  concept  of  the  State.  Whether  Plato  viewed 
the  universe  as  having  the  character  of  a  "well-ordered 
State"  cannot  here  be  asserted  with  confidence.  The 
Parmenides  may  be  quoted  in  support  of  this  view.  And 
not  inimical  to   such  an   interpretation  is  the  following 

»  Republic,  441  ff.  "  Ibid.  443. 

"  Ibid.  423  (italics  mine).  "  Ibid.  415. 


CLASSIC  AND  ROMANTIC  TRENDS  IN  PLATO    221 

passage  from  the  Gorgias:  "Philosophers  tell  us," 
Socrates  mentions  to  Callicles,  '*ihat  communion  and 
friendship  and  orderliness  and  temperance  and  justice 
bind  together  heaven  and  earth  and  gods  and  men,  and 
the  universe  is  therefore  called  Cosmos  or  order,  not 
disorder  or  misrule.''^^° 

Enough  passages  have  now  been  quoted,  I  think,  to 
suggest  the  nature  of  Plato's  two  concepts  of  unity — one 
in  essential  opposition  to  the  many,  and  the  other  result- 
ing from  their  harmonious  co-ordination.  I  venture  to 
apply  the  predicate  "romantic"  to  Plato's  search  after  a 
unity  which  transcends  multiplicity,  whereas  his  view  of 
unity  as  exemplified  in  the  conception  of  the  "well- 
ordered  State"  I  regard  as  "classic."  My  reason  for 
employing  these  predicates  in  connection  with  Plato  is 
twofold.  In  the  first  place,  I  wish  to  render  the  terms 
"classic"  and  "romantic" — as  far  as  possible  within  the 
limits  of  this  address — philosophically  articulate,  and 
thus  contribute  something  toward  their  rescue  from  the 
vagueness  and  triviality  which  they  have  acquired  as 
exclusively  literary  categories.  And  in  the  next  place, 
I  find  that  the  romanticists  in  literature — particularly 
the  German  romanticists — share  many  paradoxical  feat- 
ures with  Plato,  these  features  in  the  case  of  both  re- 
sulting from  an  essential  clash  between  the  one  and  the 
many,  between  the  universal  and  the  particular.'^ 

It  is  the  search  for  a  transcendent  unity  and  harmony 
which  leads  the  "romantic"  Plato  to  invest  the  multi- 

'« Gorgias,  508. 

'1 1  refer  here  mainly  to  German  romanticists  because  it  was  they  —  particularly 
Friedrich  Schlegel  (1772-1829) — who  clearly  formulated  a  theory  of  romanticism 
which  they  sought  to  carry  out  both  in  life  and  in  art.  The  group  comprising  the 
"Romantic  School"  consisted  of  Friedrich  von  Hardenberg  (called  Novalis),  the  two 
Schlegels  —  August  and  his  brother  Friedrich  —  and  Ludwig  Tieck;  but  I  have  in  mind 
their  later  followers  as  well,  such  as  Brentano,  Amim,  von  Kleist,  Fouque,  Hoff- 
mann, Chamisso,  Eichendorff,  Heine.  I  do  not  think,  however,  that  there  is  an  essen- 
tial difference  between  the  romanticism  in  Germany  and  what  is  vaguely  enough  called 
by  the  same  name  in  the  literatures  of  other  countries.  For  the  romantic  tendencies 
alluded  to  in  this  essay  it  will  not  be  difficult,  therefore,  to  find  illustrations  in  general 
European  literature. 


222  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

plicity  of  the  world  with  a  negative  character.  Speaking 
broadly,  the  manifold  existences  of  life  when  contrasted 
with  the  unity  of  Plato's  ideal  realm  become  for  him  either 
grotesque  or  symbolic.  By  grotesque  I  mean  to  denote 
his  notion  of  the  world  of  particulars  as  distorted,  mean- 
ingless, unreal;  by  symbolic  his  other  notion  that  the 
same  world  of  particulars  may  yet  be  viewed  by  the  phi- 
losopher as  a  suggestion  or  hint  or  intimation  of  a  tran- 
scendent realm  of  universals.  In  the  words  of  Pindar: 
*' Things  of  a  day,  what  are  we  and  what  are  we  not?  The 
dream  of  a  shadow  is  humankind;  yet  when  a  god-given 
splendor  falls,  light  shines  radiant  upon  men  and  life  is 
sweet."  ^^  Grotesque  is  the  world  as  portrayed  in  the  par-\ 
able  of  the  den  in  the  seventh  Book  of  the  Republic.  Liv-  / 
ing  in  an  underground  cave,  with  their  legs  and  necks! 
chained  so  that  they  cannot  move  toward  the  light  which  is 
above  and  behind  them  and  are  therefore  doomed  to  mis- 
take for  realities  the  shadowy  images  on  the  screen  in 
front  of  them — such  is  the  existence  of  those  in  the  "region 
of  the  many  and  variable."  This  grotesque  world  of  images 
or  "the  shadows  of  images"  ^^  is  contrasted  by  Plato 
with  the  "upper  world"  which  is  revealed  to  the  "mind's 
eye"  of  the  philosopher.  Equally  grotesque  is  the  situa- 
tion of  the  soul  "fastened  and  glued  to  the  body,"  as 
depicted  in  the  Phaedo.^^  Philosophy,  Socrates  tells  us, 
consists  in  "the  study  of  death" — death  to  all  that  which 
is  "of  the  human  and  mortal  and  unintellectuai  and 
multiform  and  dissoluble  and  changeable."  ^^  The  dis- 
ciple of  philosophy,  however,  can,  according  to  Plato, 
overcome  the  visible  and  discordant  world  in  yet  another 
way.    It  is  by  viewing  it  as  a  sign  or  symbol  of  a  different 

^Quoted  by  J.  W.  Mackail:   Lectures  on  Greek  Poetry,  London,  1910,  p.  120. 

^  Republic,  517.  »^  Phaedo,  79  ff. 

^  Ibid.  80.  This  notion  of  "death"  occurs  in  Novalis.  Indeed  he  made  a  "reso- 
lution" thus  to  die.  And  in  a  letter  to  Friedrich  Schlegel  (January  20,  1799)  he  speaks 
of  the  longing  of  Christianity  as  "absolute  Abstraktion,  Annihilation  des  Jetztigen, 
Apotheose  der  Zukunft — dieser  eigentlichen  bessern  Welt." 


CLASSIC  AND  ROMANTIC  TRENDS  IN  PLATO    223 

realm.  Appearances,  apparitions,  shadows,  ghosts — the 
"many" — are  when  taken  by  themselves  weird,  gro- 
tesque, bizarre;  interpreted,  however,  as  suggestions  of  a 
reality  other  and  deeper  than  themselves  they  become 
instinct  with  spiritual  significance.  It  is  the  particular  as 
particular  which  is  unspiritual,  sordid,  corrupt;  as  sign 
or  medium  of  a  universal  nature  it  is  raised  to  a  differ- 
ent level.  Thus  Plato's  doctrine  of  love  may  be  inter- 
preted. The  ideal  of  love,  revealed  by  Diotima  in  the 
Symposium,  is  to  attain  true  beauty,  "the  divine  beauty, 
.  .  .  pure  and  clear  and  unalloyed,  not  clogged  with  the 
pollutions  of  mortality  and  all  the  colours  and  vanities 
of  human  life."  ^^  But  this  is  the  ideal  goal.  As  aids  to 
its  attainment  the  earthly  beauties  themselves,  though 
"clogged  with  the  pollutions  of  mortality,"  become  spirit- 
ualized. I  quote  Diotima's  words:  "The  true  order  of 
going  ...  to  the  things  of  love  is  to  begin  from  the  beauties 
of  the  earth  and  mount  upwards  for  the  sake  of  that  other 
beauty,  using  these  as  steps  only,  and  from  one  going  to 
two,  and  from  two  to  all  fair  forms,  and  from  fair  forms 
to  fair  practices,  and  from  fair  practices  to  fair  notions, 
until  from  fair  notions  he  arrives  at  the  notion  of  absolute 
beauty,  and  at  last  knows  what  the  essence  of  beauty 
is."  "  The  discussion  in  the  Phaedrus  whether  the  non- 
lover  or  the  lover  is  to  be  preferred  revolves  around  the 
same  distinction  between  false  love  and  true  love.  Gro- 
tesque is  the  notion  of  love  which  is  not  "the  love  of  im- 
mortality," ^^  "taken  from  some  haunt  of  sailors,"  ^^ 
whereas  true  love  is  symbolic,  i.e.,  beauty  of  bodily  form 
is  to  be  loved  as  an  intimation  and  expression  of  divine 
beauty.^"     "Sight   is   the   most   piercing   of   our   bodily 

^  Symposium,  211.  "  Ibid.  211.  '^  Ibid.  207.  '»  Phaedrus,  243. 

^"This  doctrine  of  "symbolic  love"  is  one  of  the  cardinal  teachings  of  German 
romanticism.  It  has  received  a  variety  of  expression.  The  attitude  of  the  lover  toward 
the  beloved  in  Friedrich  Schlegel's  Lucinde  is  typical.  Says  Lucinde's  lover:  "Lass 
mich's  bekennen,  ich  liebe  nicht  dich  alleiti,  ich  liebe  die  Weiblichkeit  selbst.  Ich 
hebe  sie  nicht  bloss,  ich  bete  sie  an,  weil  ich  die  Menschheit  anbete."  (Edition  1799, 
p.  70.) 


224  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

senses,"  says  Socrates,  "though  not  by  that  is  wisdom 
seen;  her  loveUness  would  have  been  transporting  if 
there  had  been  a  visible  image  of  her,  and  the  other  ideas, 
if  they  had  visible  counterparts,  would  be  equally  lovely. 
But  this  is  the  privilege  of  beauty,  that  being  the  loveliest 
she  is  also  the  most  palpable  to  sight.  .  .  .  He  .  .  .  who  has 
been  the  spectator  of  many  glories  in  the  other  world, 
is  amazed  when  he  sees  any  one  having  a  godlike  face  or 
any  bodily  form  which  is  the  expression  of  divine 
beauty  .  .  .;  looking  upon  the  face  of  his  beloved  as  of  a 
god  he  reverences  him,  and  if  he  were  not  afraid  of  being 
thought  a  downright  madman,  he  would  sacrifice  to  his 
beloved  as  to  the  image  of  a  god."  ^^  In  the  seventh 
Book  of  the  Republic  a  similar  contrast  is  brought  out 
between  the  objects  of  sense  and  the  objects  of  science. 
The  study  of  astronomy,  for  instance,  when  its  objects^ 
are  the  mere  visible  and  perishable  stars,  is  rebuked  by 
Socrates.  Thus:  "That  knowledge  only  which  is  of 
being  and  of  the  unseen  can  make  the  soul  look  upwards, 
and  whether  a  man  gapes  at  the  heavens  or  blinks  on  the 
ground,  seeking  to  learn  some  particular  of  sense,  I 
would  deny  that  he  can  learn,  for  nothing  of  that  sort 
is  matter  of  science;  his  soul  is  looking  downwards,  not 
upwards,  whether  his  way  to  knowledge  is  by  water  or 
by  land,  whether  he  floats  or  only  lies  on  his  back."  ^'^ 
Arithmetic,  geometry,  astronomy,  and  the  kindred  sci- 
ences of  relations  and  order  have  for  Plato  educational 
value  because  they  are  suggestive  or  symbolic  of  the  ideal 
world.  They  tend  "to  make  more  easy  the  vision  of  the 
idea  of  good."  ^^ 

Many  more  passages  could  be  cited  to  show  that  the 
"region  of  the  many  and  variable"  is  viewed  by  Plato 
now  as  grotesque  or  unreal  or  impure,  now  as  symbolic  or 
suggestive  or  representative  of  the  absolute  and  per- 
manent "upper  world."    What  I  wish  to  emphasize,  how- 

"  Phaedrus,  250-251.  ^  Republic,  529.  «  Ibid.  526. 


CLASSIC  AND  ROIVIANTIC  TRENDS  IN  PLATO    225 

ever,  is  this — the  clash  between  unity  and  multiplicity,! 
between  the  ideal  and  the  real,  with  the  consequent  trans-  I 
formation  of  the  latter  into  the  grotesque  or  the  symbolic  I 
is   the   very   differentia  of  romanticism.     The  pendulari 
oscillation   between   the   grotesque  and   the   symbolic  — 
between  regarding  the  particulars  of  the  world  now  as 
illusory,  now  as  intimations  of  the  infinite — appears  to 
be  at  the  root  of  most  of  the  romantic  paradoxes.     It  is  '^ 
this  oscillation  which  renders  intelligible  the  union  of  so 
many  contradictory  traits  found  in  both  the  life  and  the 
art    of    romanticists.      Cynicism    and    reverence;     self- 
parody    and    self -worship ;     self -concentration    and   self- 
expansion;    individualism  and  cosmopolitanism;    loyalty 
and  infidelity;    dreamful  ease  and  prodigious  activity; 
superficiality  and  profundity — these  are  but  a  few  ro- 
mantic tendencies  having  their  source  in  the  Platonic 
longing  for  an  ideal  world  opposed  to  the  actual."*^  X 

The  romanticists  are  adept  specialists  in  the  art_of ^tjie , 
^otescQie.  I  need  but  allude  to  the  tales  of  Novalis, 
Tieck,  Chamisso,  Hoffmann,  Victor  Hugo,  Poe.  With 
the  German  romanticists,  however,  the  cultivation  of  the 
grotesque  is  a  conscious  design  to  destroy  the  common 
conceptions  of  things.  It  is  a  quasi-Socratic  reductio  ad 
absurdum  of  the  generally  accepted  world..  For  the  ro- 
manticists the  world  is  full  of  w^onder  and  mystery  un- 
dreamt of  by  the  "many,"  the  philistines.  But  this 
wonder  and  mystery,  because  so  obvious  to  them,  losei 
their  strangeness.  Hence  the  reverse  romantic  tendency 
to  depict  the  miraculous  and  the  fabulous  as  the  familiar. 
The  romantic  world  is  veritably  verkehrt.  The  familiar 
becomes  strange,  the  strange  familiar;  the  near  grows 
far,  the  far  near.    It  is  to  this  spirit  that  we  owe  a  wealth 

**  I  should  not  be  understood  as  deriving  romanticism  historically  from  Plato. 
I  am  well  aware,  in  the  case  of  German  romanticism,  of  the  intimate  relation  between 
it  and  the  Fichtean  philosophy.  I  am  using  romanticism  here  as  an  elemental  attitude 
possessing  philosophic  generality,  of  which  the  Fichtean  doctrine  of  the  world-building 
and  world-destroying  Infinite  Self,  engaged  in  the  restless  quest  after  an  unattainable 
ideal,  is  itself  a  notable  expression. 


K 


226  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

of  modern  fairy  tales  and  an  appreciative  interest  in  dis- 
tant languages  and  literatures. 

His  longing  for  an  ideal  harmonious  world  determines 
the  romanticist's  strange  theory  of  values.    The  worth  of 
things  resides  in  the  moods  they  arouse,  the  dreams  they  ^ 
inspire,  the  hidden  realities  they  suggest. 

"  To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears," 

says  Wordsworth  at  the  close  of  his  Ode  on  Immortality. 
Or  in  the  words  of  another  poet, 

"Not  the  slightest  leaf  but  trembling  teems 
With  golden  visions  and  romantic  dreams." 

Contrasted  with  the  ideal,  all  particular  things  and  in- 
terests are  equally  nugatory;  as  suggestions  or  symbols 
of  the  ideal  everything  is  equally  relevant.  This  double 
standard  applied  to  all  things,  at  once  or  successively,  is 
typically  romantic.  It  engenders  an  elasticity  of  mood 
and  feeling  and  thought  and  expression  which  is  consist- 
ent in  its  capriciousness.  Loyalty  to  the  ideal  requires 
a  constant  flux  of  symbols.  In  order  not  to  become  en- 
meshed in  particulars  the  romanticist  must  continually 
transcend  them.  So  it  comes  about  that  for  him  loyalty 
and  infidelity  are  Siamese  twins.  Loyalty  to  the  universal 
is  conditioned  upon  faithlessness  to  the  particulars.  The 
symbolic  character  of  the  particular  can  be  demonstrated 
only  by  forsaking  and  exchanging  it  for  another  particular. 
The  romanticist  may  therefore  be  called  an  intellectual 
and  emotional  "polygamist."  In  love  with  the  infinite, 
no  finite  aim,  interest,  mood,  or  person  can  lay  claim  to 
his  sustained  fidelity.  Because  his  allegiance  belongs  to 
the  eternal  he  must  perforce  repudiate  temporary  and 
transient  embodiments  of  it. 

"No  more  of  me  ye  knew, 
My  Love! 
No  more  of  me  ye  knew," 


CLASSIC  AND  ROMANTIC  TRENDS  IN  PLATO    227 

is  the  ''rover's  adieu"  to  his  fugitive  attachments.  Para- 
doxical though  it  may  seem,  fickleness  is  the  very  expres- 
sion of  his  constancy.  Don  Juan  is  the  romanticist's 
most  faithful  lover. 

Thus  in  search  for  unity  and  harmony  the  romanticist 
becomes  a  wanderer  from  particular  to  particular. 
Wanderlust — the  universal  romantic  motif — acquires  for 
him  the  dignity  of  a  philosophic  principle.  Aimlessness, 
exemplified,  for  instance,  in  Eichendorff's  Das  Lehen 
eines  Taiigenichts,  is  his  conscious  aim,  and  is  extended 
as  a  programme  to  all  intellectual,  emotional,  and  imagina- 
tive pursuits.  The  acquisition  of  a  definite  and  particular 
purpose  is  accompanied  with  the  ache  of  self-limitation, 
and  calls  therefore  for  relief  through  the  cultivation  of 
new  interests.  For  particular  ends  and  purposes  are  but 
transient  means  to  appease  one's  yearning  after  the  in- 
finite. Care  must  be  taken  to  discover  constantly  new 
means.  The  frequent  abandonment  of  particular  in- 
terests is  the  romanticist's  sincere  proof  that  his  goal  is 
the  universal,  not  the  particular.  Hence  his  protean 
activity,  his  catholicity,  his  versatility.  His  is  the  life 
of  the  adventurous  wanderer.  He  roams  through  field 
and  forest,  art  and  religion,  philosophy  and  science,  life 
and  love,  with  the  elan  vital  of  Shelley's  West  Wind.  He 
heeds  not  the  call, 

"Wild  Spirit  which  art  moving  everywhere; 
Destroyer  and  preserver;  hear,  O  hear!" 

Of  necessity  then  his  nature  must  be  untamed  and  un- 
disciplined. Discipline  and  waywardness  do  not  dwell 
within  the  same  breast.  In  this  the  romanticist  glories. 
The  wanderer's  life  alone  is  the  free  life.  The  freedom 
romanticism  eulogizes  is  the  freedom  from  particularity. 
Stoicism  too  advocates  such  freedom.  But  there  is  a 
radical  difference  between  the  two.  Stoicism  wins  its  in- 
dependence by  withdrawing  from  the  particulars;  roman- 


228  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

ticism  by  pursuing  and  appropriating  all  possible  par- 
ticulars. The  stoic  turns  his  back  upon  the  vicissitudes 
and  complexities  of  life;  the  romanticist  experiments 
and  plays  with  them.  The  freedom  from  particulars, 
from  their  ties  and  responsibilities  which  the  player 
and  the  wanderer  alone  enjoy,  is  the  romantic  ideal. 
Viewing  thus  all  things  through  the  eyes  of  the  passing 
pilgrim,  the  romanticist  can  give  you  no  definite  picture 
of  what  he  sees.  He  can  but  give  you  his  fugitive  and! 
sensitive  impressions.  For  this  reason  all  romantic  art 
has  a  lyrical  quality  about  it.  It  is  an  art  of  suggestion 
and  mood.  It  is  what  the  Germans  call  stimmungsvolL 
And  no  accident  is  it  that  romantic  art  excels  in  the  epi- 
gram, the  fragment,  the  lyric,  the  essay,  the  tale,  the 
song,  and  all  the  other  casual  forms  of  expression.  Ro- 
mantic achievement  is  the  achievement  which  requires 
no  sustained  effort,  no  prolonged  attention,  being  the  prod- 
uct of  the  moment's  mood  and  inspiration.  Thoroughly 
at  home  the  German  romanticists — so  protean  in  their 
interests  and  so  prodigious  in  their  industry — were  in  no 
one  field.  They  paid  the  price  of  the  rover's  life.  The 
pathos  of  the  wanderer's  homelessness  none  felt  more 
keenly  than  they.  In  endless  pursuit  of  their  ideal,  seek- 
ing and  finding  no  particular  object  which  will  embody 
it,  doomed  therefore  to  aimless  and  restless  straying, 
the  romanticists  have  repeatedly  given  voice  to  the 
thought, 

"We  look  before  and  after. 
And  pine  for  what  is  not." 

The  romantic  fate  has  perhaps  been  most  pointedly  stated 
by  the  author  of  the  Imitation  of  Christ.  Thus:  "Thou 
hast  no  dwelling  city  and  wherever  thou  be  thou  art  as 
a  stranger  and  a  pilgrim."  You  will  also  recall  the  lamen- 
tation of  Schubert's  Wanderer:  '' Dort  wo  Du  nicht  hist, 
da  ist  das  Gliick" 


CLASSIC  AND  ROMANTIC  TRENDS  IN  PLATO    229 

Consistent  with  his  theory  of  values  is  the  romanticist's 
attitude  toward  himself.  As  "destroyer"  and  "pre- 
server" he  ranges  and  strays  among  the  experiences  of 
his  inner  life,  which  can  afford  him  a  resting  place  as 
little  as  the  world  outside  him.  Here  again  he  is  a  stranger 
and  a  pilgrim.  At  once  "grotesque"  and  "symbolic," 
distorted  and  clear,  worthless  and  profound,  ephemeral 
and  infinite  his  passions  and  thoughts  and  moods  appear 
to  him.^^  As  particular  among  particulars  he  is  himself 
something  to  be  estranged  from  and  forsaken.  But  like 
all  things  finite,  he  also 

"Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 
And  Cometh  from  afar." 

He  is  not  only  finite;  he  too  is  an  intimation  of  the  in- 
finite. Thus  the  dramatic  oscillation  between  the  gro- 
tesque and  the  symbolic  is  projected  into  the  romanticist's 
inner  life.  In  his  exalted  moods  he  regards  himself  as 
God's  beloved,  as  the  inspired  vehicle  of  the  Eternal. 
Hence  his  genuine  love  and  reverence  for  himself.  His 
dreams,  his  words,  his  tears,  are  instinct  with  universal 
meaning;  he  bares  them  as  revelations  of  a  nature 
deeper  and  vaster  than  his  own;  they  have  for  him  the 
awesome  significance  of  oracular  signs.  Thus  sings 
Emerson : 

"I  am  owner  of  the  sphere. 
Of  the  seven  stars  and  the  solar  year. 
Of  Caesar's  hand  and  Plato's  brain, 
Of  Lord  Christ's  heart,  and  Shakespeare's  strain." 

^This  is  a  familiar  paradox  in  romantic  literature.    Goethe's  Faust  complains: 
"Zwei  Seelen  wohnen,  ach!  in  meiner  Brust; 

Die  eine  will  sich  von  der  andern  trennen; 

Die  eine  halt  in  derber  Liebeslust, 

Sich  an  die  Welt,  mit  klammernden  Organen; 

Die  andre  hebt  gewaltsam  sich  vom  Dust 

Zu  den  Gefiihlen  hoher  Ahnen." 
And  Victor  Hugo's  Mahomet  laments : 

"Je  suis  le  lieu  vil  des  sublimes  combats: 

Tantot  I'homme  d'en  haut,  et  tantot  I'homme  d'en  bas; 

Et  le  mal  dans  ma  bouche  avec  le  bien  alterne, 

Comme  dans  le  desert  le  sable  et  la  citerne." 


230  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

But — and  here  is  the  romantic  paradox — because  he  is 
a  symbol  of  the  divine,  because  he  worships  the  ideal 
within  him,  he  must  burst  the  bonds  of  his  own  particu- 
larity, he  must  not  be  smothered  in  the  flux  of  his  inner 
life.  The  deep  love  of  the  universal  of  which  he  is  a 
medium  leads  him  to  absolve  himself  from  himself,  not 
indeed  in  the  stoic's  or  in  the  mystic's  fashion.  The 
romantic  way  is  the  cynical  way.  Self -parody  is  the 
romanticist's  mode  of  purging  himself  of  his  particularity. 
Cynical  self -contemplation  is  the  *' destroyer"  of  his 
ephemeral  and  the  "preserver"  of  his  eternal  nature. 
Cynicism  toward  himself  becomes  his  sublimest  expres- 
sion of  reverence  for  the  universal,  just  as  his  deliberate 
infidelity  to  definite  ends  was  the  very  instrumentality 
by  which  the  romanticist  could  show  his  supreme  alle- 
giance and  longing  for  the  infinite.  Self -parody  is  thus 
seen  to  be  a  method  of  solving  the  Platonic  problem  of  the 
universal  and  the  particular. 

"^Viewed  thus,  the  principle  of  "romantic  irony,"  for- 
mulated by  Friedrich  Schlegel  with  especial  reference  to 
the  artist's  attitude  toward  his  work,  is  simply  another 
aspect  of  romantic  freedom  from  particularity.  It  is, 
to  borrow  a  phrase  from  Walter  Pater,  the  "fastidious 
refusal  to  be  or  do  any  limited  thing."  The  romanticist 
refuses  to  identify  himself  with  his  work  because,  being 
particular,  it  never  can  be  an  adequate  expression  of  his 
infinite  ambition.  For  the  romantic  ideal  is  the  uni- 
versal— Schlegel's  Uiiiversalpoesie;  as  such  it  can  achieve 
no  realization  in  any  particular  content  and  form.  The 
artist's  love  for  art  is  to  be  measured  by  his  ability  to 
transcend  his  own  product.  Freedom  and  independence 
of  his  own  particular  efforts  are  demonstrated  by  his 
willingness  ever  to  repudiate  them.  The  test  of  his  earnest- 
ness is  self-irony.  Irony  is  his  explicit  acknowledgment 
that  the  ideal  is  more  precious  than  the  actual.  Irony 
toward  his  work  is  simply  the  disavowal  of  the  particular- 


CLASSIC  AND  ROMANTIC  TRENDS  IN  PLATO    231 

ity  which  attaches  to  it^in  favor  of  the  universal  essence 
of  which  it  is  to  be  an  intimation.  With  the  various 
ways  in  which  this  principle  of  irony  has  been  applied, 
notably  by  Tieck  and  Byron  and  Heine,  and  more 
recently   by  Shaw,  we  are  here  not  concerned. 

These  are  but  a  few  romantic  trends  and  paradoxes 
which  have  their  logical  source  in  the  Platonic  longing  for 
an  ideal  and  harmony  transcending  this  world  of  the 
"many  and  variable."  In  his  Lucinde — a  book  which 
contains  in  a  nutshell  the  entire  philosophy  of  romanti- 
cism, theoretical  and  applied — Friedrich  Schlegel  charac- 
terizes the  object  of  romantic  longing  as  longing  itself. 
And  Novalis  has  supplied  the  symbol  for  this  notion  in 
his  well-known  figure  of  the  "blue  flower."  The  con- 
cept "longing  for  longing"  is  typically  Platonic.  Long- 
ing as  such,  by  being  its  own  object  and  devoid  of  definite 
content,  becomes  a  sort  of  "colourless,  formless,  intangi- 
ble essence,"  ^^  which  can  find  embodiment  or  rest  in  no 
particular  nature.  More  than  a  superficial  resemblance 
has  this  idea  of  longing  to  Schopenhauer's  notion  of  the 
"will,"  but  what  interests  us  here  is  the  Platonic  duajigpi  | 
of  the  imiversal  and  the  particular  implied  in  it.  Infinite 
longingiand  the  many  and  the  particular  objects  of  long- 
ing cannot  coalesce;  for  ever  sundered  they  must  re- 
main, since  the  only  definite  thing  which  longing  seeks  is 
indefinite  longing  itself.  It  is  this  yearning  after  itself — a 
transcendent  thing — which  sends  the  romanticist  a-rov- 
ing.    It  is  this  which  constitutes  the  romantic  career — 

"To  burst  all  links  of  habit — there  to  wander  far  away, 
On  from  island  unto  island  at  the  gateways  of  the  day." 

It  is  this  which  explains  his  eternal  Wanderlust  among  all  \ 
experience,  among  all  the  objects  of  nature  and  life,  of  ) 
love  and  art. 

While   the  romanticist's   longing   can   never   come   to 
rest,  it  seems  to  find  a  momentary  haven  of  refuge  in  the 

«  Phaedrus,  247. 


232  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

contemplation  of  the  past.  The  modern  historic  spirit, 
inaugurated  by  the  German  romanticists,  is  intimately 
bound  up  with  romantic  longing.  Their  interest  in  the 
past  springs  from  the  feeling  that  the  harmony  and  unity 
longed  for  had  once  been  realized,  had  had  embodiment 
in  epochs  remote  from  the  present.  The  historic  spirit  of 
romanticism  consists  in  a  conscious  reconstruction  of  the 
past  in  terms  of  an  ideal  vainl^^  sought  for  herejjidjii^.^^ 
Thus  the  past  becomes  idealized.  And  thus  commences 
the  romantic  regressive  pilgrimage.  The  Middle  Ages, 
Hellas,  or  perchance  a  more  antique  Golden  Age,  are  en- 
dowed with  the  heaven  of  beauty  and  harmony  and  per- 
fection. The  isles  of  Greece  become  romantic  Arcadia; 
and  the  unmatched  glories  and  splendors  of  mediaeval 
life,  art,  and  religion  were  not  seen  until  discovered,  loved, 
and  cherished  by  romantic  poets.  This  idealization  of  the 
remote  past,  and  the  motives  for  it,  the  romanticists 
share  with  Plato.  In  Plato  also  may  be  found  the  pro- 
jection into  antiquity — a  very  remote  antiquity  in  his 
case — of  an  ideal  and  perfection  "not  varying  from  gen- 
eration and  corruption."  The  Platonic  theory  of  "recol- 
lection" is  based  upon  the  assumption  of  a  previous 
existence  more  perfect  than  the  present.  All  knowing, 
all  learning  is  but  recalling  what  the  soul  beheld  in  that 
perfect  state.  "The  Soul,"  Socrates  states  in  the  Meno, 
".  .  .  being  immortal,  and  having  seen  all  things  that 
exist,  whether  in  this  world  or  in  the  world  below,  has 
knowledge  of  them  all;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  she  should 
be  able  to  call  to  remembrance  all  that  she  ever  knew  .  .  . ; 
the  soul  has  learned  all  things,  there  is  no  difficulty  in 
her  eliciting,  or  as  men  say  learning,  out  of  a  single  recol- 
lection all  the  rest  .  .  .;  for  all  enquiry  and  all  learning  is 

*'  The  historic  spirit  of  romanticism  should  not  be  confused  with  that  of  Hegel. 
In  general,  the  romanticists  emphasize  the  discontinuity  of  past  and  present,  exempli- 
fied in  Die  Christenheit  oder  Europa  by  Novalis,  in  Atala  by  Chateaubriand,  in 
Rousseau's  works;  whereas  Hegel  insists  upon  their  coijtinuity.  The  romanticists 
look  backward  for  an  ideal  in  contrast  with  the  actual;  Hegel  looks  to  the  past  for 
the  seeds  of  the  full-grown  present. 


CLASSIC  AND   ROMANTIC  TRENDS  IN  PLATO    233 

but  recollection."  "^^  The  Phaedrus  likewise  goes  back  to 
a  former  state  of  existence,  in  which  the  gods  and  men 
have  once  seen  the  divine  forms  of  "justice,  and  temper- 
ance, and  knowledge  absolute,  not  in  the  form  of  genera- 
tion or  of  relation,  which  men  call  existence,  but  knowledge 
absolute  in  existence  absolute."  ^^  Plato's  "golden  age" 
is  depicted  more  vividly  and  more  poetically  in  the  fol- 
lowing passage:  "There  was  a  time  when  .  .  .  we  beheld 
the  beatific  vision  and  were  initiated  into  a  mystery 
which  may  be  truly  called  most  blessed,  celebrated  by  us 
in  our  state  of  innocence,  before  we  had  any  experience 
of  evils  to  come,  when  we  were  admitted  to  the  sight  of 
apparitions  innocent  and  simple  and  calm  and  happy, 
which  we  beheld  shining  in  pure  light,  pure  ourselves  and 
not  yet  enshrined  in  that  living  tomb  which  we  carry  \ 
about,  now  that  we  are  imprisoned  in  the  body,  like  an 
oyster  in  his  shell."  ^^  This  "historic"  spirit  of  Plato, 
this  looking  "backward"  to  a  blessed  "state  of  innocence" 
is  born  of  the  same  yearning  as  that  of  the  romanticists, 
the  yearning  to  find  in  a  "previous"  existence  unity, 
harmony,  perfection,  and  an  escape  from  the  present 
strife  of  the  one  and  the  many,  the  universal  and  the 
particular. 

The  "classiq"  trend  of  Plato  remains  now  to  be  briefly  k 
suggested.  Whereas  his  romanticism  lies  in  the  clash 
between  unity  and  multiplicity  and  in  the  consequent 
transformation  of  the  latter  into  the  grotesque  or  the 
symbolic,  the  ideal  which  dominates  his  classicism  con- 
sists in  the  reconciliation  of  the  one  and  the  many,  the 
universal  and  the  particular.  In  his  " w^ell-ordered  State" 
Plato  has  defined  for  us  a  novel  concept  of  unity  —  a  unity  I 
which  logically  requires  multiplicity.  It  is  the  unity  of  a 
whole  which  results  from  the  organization  and  co-ordina- 
tion of  the  many.  Here  diverse  elements  are  welded  to- 
gether into  an  harmonious  structure.     Here  we  have  a 

"  Meno,  81.  «  Phaedrus,  247.  ^  Ibid.  250. 


234  HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW 

unity  which  is  compounded  of  the  many.  Here  the  par- 
ticulars constitute  a  universal.  These  particulars — the 
many  elements  of  the  State — are  not  ephemeral  shadows 
or  faint  copies  of  a  transcendent  universal;  they  are  real 
and  necessary  and  constitutive  parts  of  a  whole.  Thus, 
universal  and  particular,  whole  and  part,  unity  and  mul- 
tiplicity are  interdependent  and  mutually  inclusive.  The 
problem  of  monism  and  pluralism — to  use  metaphysical 
concepts — receives  here  perhaps  its  only  adequate  solu- 
tion. Unity  without  multiplicity  is  "empty";  multi- 
plicity without  unity  "blind."  Plato's  State  illustrates 
a  multiplicity  which  is  an  organic  unity,  a  unity  which  is 
a  well-ordered  multiplicity. 

The  parts  which  constitute  such  an  organic  union,  how- 
ever, cannot  be  equal.  The  State  is  a  whole  which  is  no 
mere  sum  of  external  parts;  its  wholeness  is  achieved 
through  differentiation.  That  is,  the  particulars  which 
enter  into  such  union  must  be  different  particulars ;  other- 
wise we  should  have  a  blurred  and  not  a  well-ordered 
whole.  One  particular  member  of  the  State,  for  instance, 
cannot  be  allowed  to  usurp  the  function  of  another  par- 
ticular. Each  has  in  the  structure  of  the  whole  a  unique 
and  distinct  place.  "In  all  well-ordered  States,"  says 
Socrates  in  the  Republic,  "every  individual  has  an  occu- 
pation to  which  he  must  attend."  ^^  Also,  "Each  indi- 
vidual should  be  put  to  the  use  for  which  nature  intended 
him."  ^^  Justice  of  the  State  as  well  as  of  the  individual 
resides  for  Plato  in  the  harmonious  co-operation  of  dis- 
tinct interests  and  activities.  The  just  soul  is  the  well- 
ordered  soul;  the  just  State  is  the  well-ordered  State. 
Well-ordered  organizations  then  are  unities  which  are 
composed  of  a  plurality  of  distinct  parts.  The  wholeness 
of  any  organism  is  secured,  preserved,  and  rendered 
effective  by  the  very  particularization  and  specialization 
of  its  members.    Thus  not  escape  from  particularity,  as 

"  Republic,  406.  ^  Ibid.  423. 


CLASSIC  AND  ROIMANTIC  TRENDS  IN  PLATO    235 

• 
demanded  by  romanticism,  but  loyalty  to  the  special  role 
which  the  whole  assigns  to  each  of  its  members  is  the 
classic  ideal.  Not  freedom  from  particularity  —  the  ro- 
mantic ambition — but  freedom  to  be  a  particular,  to  have 
a  definite  place  in  the  organic  composition  of  the  whole 
is  the  classic  aim. 

To  exhibit  in  detail  that  the  Platonic  notion  of  "organic 
unity"  or  "organic  w^holeness"  is  at  the  basis  of  the  classic^ 
theory_of^art,  lies  beyond  the  province  of  this  paper.  I 
hope  I  shall  be  pardoned,  however,  for  citing  in  this  con- 
nection a  lengthy  but  significant  passage  from  S.  H. 
Butcher. 

"It  may  be  noticed,"  says  he,  commenting  on  Aristotle's  Poetics, 
"that  the  opposition  between  the  poet  and  the  historian  in  the 
Poetics  is  incidentally  introduced  to  illustrate  the  sense  in  which  a  J 
tragedy  is  on£,  and  a  whole.  These  two  notions  as  understood  by 
Aristotle  are  not  identical.  A  unity  is  composed  of  a  plurality  of 
parts  which  cohere  together  and  fall  unde^  a  common  idea  but  are 
not  necessarily  combined  in  a  definite  order.  The  notion  of  a  wliole 
imphes  something  more.  The  parts  which  constitute  it  must  be  in- 
wardly connected,  arranged  in  a  certain  order,  structurally  related, 
and  combined  into  a  system.  A  whole  is  not  a  mere  mass  or  sum  of 
external  parts  which  may  be  transposed  at  will,  any  one  of  which 
may  be  omitted  without  perceptibly  affecting  the  rest.  It  is  a  unity 
which  is  unfolded  and  expanded  according  to  the  law  of  its  own  nature, 
an  organism  which  develops  from  within.  By  the  rule,  again,  of 
beauty,  which  is  a  first  requirement  of  art,  a  poetic  creation  must  \ 
exhibit  at  once  unity  and  pluraUty.  .  .  .  The  idea  of  an  organism  evi- 
dently underlies  all  Aristotle's  rules  about  unity;  it  is  tacitly  as- 
sumed as  a  first  principle  of  art,  and  in  one  passage  is  expressly 
mentioned  as  that  from  which  the  rule  of  epicusJty  is  deduced.  '  The 
plot  must,  as  in  a  tragedy,  be  dramatically  con^structed  ;^  it  must 
have  for  its  subject  a  single  action,  whole  and  complete,  with  a 
beginning,  a  middle,  and  an  end.  It  will  thus  resemble  a^single  and 
coherent  organism,  and  produce  the  pleasure  proper  to  it.' 

"Plato  in  the  Phaedrus  had  insisted  that  every  artistic  composition, 
whether  in  prose  or  verse,  should  have  an  organic  unity.  'You  will 
allow  that  every  discourse  ought  to  be  constructed  hke  a  living  organ- 
ism, having  its  ownTody  and  head  and  feet;  it  must  have  middle  and 
extremities,  drawn  in  a  manner  agreeable  to  one  another  and  to  the 


236  HARVARD  THEOLOGI^^AL  REVIEW 

• 
whole.'    Aristotle  took  up  the  hint;  the  passage  above  quoted  from 
the  Poetics  is  a  remarkable  echo  of  the  words  of  the  Phaedrus;   and 
indeed  the  idea  may  be  said  to  be  at  the  basis  of  his  whole  poetic 
criticism."  ^^ 

There  is  no  need  to  show  in  this  essay  how  the  Platonic 
ideal  of  a  well-ordered  whole  dominates  the  practice  of 
Greek  art  as  well  as  its  theory.  This  ideal  it  is  which  fur- 
nishes a  standard  of  character  and  life  associated  with 
*'the  glory  that  was  Greece."  A  criterion  of  conduct  as 
well  as  of  taste  is  supplied  by  it.  The  harmony  and  co- 
herence and  repose  of  classic  art,  the  felicity  and  beauty 
and  restraint  of  classic  life,  are  grounded  in  the  Platonic 
conception  of  "organic  unity."  And  this  conception, 
in  both  its  aesthetic  and  moral  excellence,  is  the 
model  of  modern  classicism.  French  literature  in  the 
seventeenth  century  is  classic  in  this  sense.  And  the 
same  classic  ideal  inspires  the  mature  poetry  of  Goethe 
and  of  Schiller.  It  i^  the  Platonic  view  of  a  well-ordered 
and  harmonious  whole  which  defines,  for  instance,  in 
Wilhelm  Meister  and  in  Iphigenie  Goethe's  standard  of 
conduct  and  of  art. 

I  am  convificed  that  an  analysis  more  exhaustive  than 
here  attempted  of  Plato's  two  concepts  of  unity  would 
yield  a  logical  basis  for  defining  most  of  the  problems  con- 
nected with  classicism  and  romanticism  both  in  art  and 
in  philosophy.  Here  I  could  do  no  more  than  suggest 
that  the  distinction  between  the  classic  and  the  romantic 
ideals  is  funoamental  and  intimttlely  related  to  the  Pla- 
tonic teachings.  Whether  Plato  was  essentially  a  classi- 
cist or  essentially  a  romanticist,  or  both  in  strange 
union,  I  do  not  know.  I  must  reiterate,  as  I  close,  that 
I  venture  upon  no  interpretation  of  Plato  himself.  How- 
ever the  classic  and  the  romantic  trends  in  his  writings 
be  exj^ained,  the  distinction  between  them  is  important. 
For  here,  to  speak  with  Socrates,  "no  light  matter  is  at 
stake,  nothing  less  than  the  rule  of  human  life." 

"  Aristotle's  Theory  of   Poetry  and  Fine  Arts,  Fourth    Edition,  Macmillan  Co. 
London,  1911,  pp.  186-189. 


GAYLAMOUNT  *  ^ 

PAMPHLET  BINDER 

Manu/acluftd  bv 
6AYLORD  BROS.  Inc.  ^'-  ''' — ^ 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. 
Sloclclon,  Calif. 


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